salt-lint 0.5.2

A command-line utility that checks for best practices in SaltStack.

salt-lint

salt-lint checks Salt State files (SLS) for best practices and behavior that could potentially be improved.

The project is heavily based on ansible-lint, which was created by Will Thames and is now maintained as part of the Ansible by Red Hat project.

Demo

Installing

Using Pip

pip install salt-lint

From Source

pip install git+https://github.com/warpnet/salt-lint.git

Usage

Command Line Options

The following is the output from salt-lint --help, providing an overview of the basic command line options:

usage: salt-lint [-h] [--version] [-L] [-r RULESDIR] [-R] [-t TAGS] [-T] [-v] [-x SKIP_LIST] [--nocolor] [--force-color]
                 [--exclude EXCLUDE_PATHS] [--json] [--severity] [-c C]
                 files [files ...]

positional arguments:
  files                 One or more files or paths.

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -L                    list all the rules
  -r RULESDIR           specify one or more rules directories using one or more -r arguments. Any -r flags
                        override the default rules in /path/to/salt-lint/saltlint/rules, unless -R is also used.
  -R                    Use default rules in /path/to/salt-lint/saltlint/rules in addition to any extra rules
                        directories specified with -r. There is no need to specify this if no -r flags are used.
  -t TAGS               only check rules whose id/tags match these values
  -T                    list all the tags
  -v                    Increase verbosity level
  -x SKIP_LIST          only check rules whose id/tags do not match these values
  --nocolor, --nocolour
                        disable colored output
  --force-color, --force-colour
                        Try force colored output (relying on salt's code)
  --exclude EXCLUDE_PATHS
                        path to directories or files to skip. This option is repeatable.
  --json                parse the output as JSON
  --severity            add the severity to the standard output
  -c C                  Specify configuration file to use. Defaults to ".salt-lint"

Linting Salt State files

It's important to note that salt-lint accepts a list of Salt State files or a list of directories.

Docker & Podman

salt-lint is available on Dockerhub.

Example usage:

docker run -v $(pwd):/data:ro --entrypoint=/bin/bash -it warpnetbv/salt-lint:latest -c 'find /data -type f -name "*.sls" -print0 | xargs -0 --no-run-if-empty salt-lint'

On a system with SELinux, change :ro to :Z. Example below uses podman:

podman run -v $(pwd):/data:Z --entrypoint=/bin/bash -it warpnetbv/salt-lint:latest -c 'find /data -type f -name "*.sls" -print0 | xargs -0 --no-run-if-empty salt-lint'

GitHub Action

Salt-lint is available on the GitHub marketplace as a GitHub Action. The salt-lint-action allows you to run salt-lint with no additional options.

To use the action simply add the following lines to your .github/workflows/main.yml.

on: [push]

jobs:
  test:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Salt Lint Action
    steps:
    - uses: actions/checkout@v1
    - name: Run salt-lint
      uses: roaldnefs/salt-lint-action@master
      env:
        ACTION_STATE_NAME: init.sls

Configuring

Configuration File

Salt-lint supports local configuration via a .salt-lint configuration file. Salt-lint checks the working directory for the presence of this file and applies any configuration found there. The configuration file location can also be overridden via the -c path/to/file CLI flag.

If a value is provided on both the command line and via a configuration file, the values will be merged (if a list like exclude_paths), or the True value will be preferred, in the case of something like quiet.

The following values are supported, and function identically to their CLI counterparts:

---
exclude_paths:
  - exclude_this_file
  - exclude_this_directory/
  - exclude/this/sub-directory/
skip_list:
  - 207
  - 208
tags:
  - formatting
verbosity: 1
rules:
  formatting:
    ignore: |
      ignore/this/directory/*.sls
      *.jinja
  210:
    ignore: 'exclude_this_file.sls'
severity: True

Pre-commit Setup

To use salt-lint with pre-commit, just add the following to your local repo's .pre-commit-config.yaml file. Prior to version 0.12.0 of pre-commit the file was hooks.yaml (now .pre-commit-config.yaml).

---

# For use with pre-commit.
# See usage instructions at http://pre-commit.com

-   repo: https://github.com/warpnet/salt-lint
    rev: v0.5.1
    hooks:
      - id: salt-lint

Optionally override the default file selection as follows:

      ...
      - id: salt-lint
        files: \.(sls|jinja|tmpl)$

Rules

List of rules

Formatting

Disable formatting checks using -x formatting

Rule	Description
201	Trailing whitespace
202	Jinja statement should have spaces before and after: {% statement %}
203	Most files should not contain tabs
204	Lines should be no longer than 160 chars
205	Use ".sls" as a Salt State file extension
206	Jinja variables should have spaces before and after {{ var_name }}
207	File modes should always be encapsulated in quotation marks
208	File modes should always contain a leading zero
209	Jinja comment should have spaces before and after: {# comment #}
210	Numbers that start with 0 should always be encapsulated in quotation marks
211	pillar.get or grains.get should be formatted differently
212	Most files should not contain irregular spaces
213	SaltStack recommends using cmd.run together with onchanges, rather than cmd.wait
214	SLS file with a period in the name (besides the suffix period) can not be referenced

Jinja

Disable jinja checks using -x jinja

Rule	Description
202	Jinja statement should have spaces before and after: {% statement %}
206	Jinja variables should have spaces before and after {{ var_name }}
209	Jinja comment should have spaces before and after: {# comment #}
211	pillar.get or grains.get should be formatted differently

Deprecations

Disable deprecation checks using -x deprecation

Rule	Description
901	Using the quiet argument with cmd.run is deprecated. Use output_loglevel: quiet

False Positives: Skipping Rules

Some rules are bit of a rule of thumb. To skip a specific rule for a specific task, inside your state add # noqa [rule_id] at the end of the line. You can skip multiple rules via a space-separated list. Example:

/tmp/testfile:
  file.managed:
    - source: salt://{{unspaced_var}}/example  # noqa: 206

Plugins

Currently, there is a salt-lint plugin available for the following applications:

Application	GitHub Link	Store/Marketplace
Visual Studio Code	warpnet/vscode-salt-lint	VisualStudio Marketplace
Sublime Text	warpnet/SublimeLinter-salt-lint	Package Control
Vim (ALE plugin)	dense-analysis/ale	GitHub

Wish to create a salt-lint extension for your favourite editor? We're always looking for contributions!

Fix common issues

sed might be one of the better tools to fix common issues, as shown in commands below.

Note: these commands assume your current working directory is the salt (states) directory/repository.

Fix spacing around {{ var_name }}, eg. {{env}} --> {{ env }}:
sed -i -E "s/\{\{\s?([^}]*[^} ])\s?\}\}/\{\{ \1 \}\}/g" $(find . -name '*.sls')

Make the dir_mode, file_mode and mode arguments in the desired syntax:
sed -i -E "s/\b(dir_|file_|)mode: 0?([0-7]{3})/\1mode: '0\2'/" $(find . -name '*.sls')

Add quotes around numeric values that start with a 0:
sed -i -E "s/\b(minute|hour): (0[0-7]?)\$/\1: '\2'/" $(find . -name '*.sls')

Acknowledgement

The project is heavily based on ansible-lint, with the modified work by Warpnet B.V.. ansible-lint was created by Will Thames and is now maintained as part of the Ansible by Red Hat project.

Changelog

All notable changes in salt-lint are documented below.

Unreleased

0.5.2 (2021-01-29)

Fixed

• Append the contents of the CHANGELOG.md file to the long description of the package instead of the duplicate README.md contents (#234).
• Ignore Jinja specific rules in Jinja escaped blocks (#236).

0.5.1 (2021-01-19)

Fixed

• Ensure all excluded paths from both the CLI and configuration are passed to the runner (#231).

0.5.0 (2021-01-17)

Added

• Rule 213 to recommend using cmd.run together with onchanges (#207).
• Rule 214 to check SLS file with a period in the name (besides the suffix period) as they can not be referenced by Salt (#209).
• Rules 901-915 to check for deprecated states and state options (#214).
• This CHANGELOG.md file to be able to list all notable changes for each version of salt-lint (#223).